Driver distraction from the use of mobile devices such as smartphones while driving is a growing hazard on roads today. According to a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) study, in 2009, phone use was a contributing factor to the loss of over 5,000 lives and 400,000 traffic related injuries. For example, drivers often send and/or receive text messages while driving—a practice widely known as “texting”. To address the texting problem, governments have passed laws that restrict or outlaw driver use of smartphones in vehicles. In addition, attempts have been made to modify driver behavior by educating drivers about the risks of texting.
Technical solutions that use GPS and/or ports in the vehicle, such as the OBDII port to detect phone usage during vehicle movement have also been proposed. Other technical solutions that attempt to detect phone activity while the vehicle is in motion have also been proposed. However, current technical solutions either do not distinguish between driver and passenger use of the phone and/or require vehicle modifications. Therefore, they often depend on driver cooperation to work.
In general, current technical solutions to the problem of driver texting suffer from several drawbacks including: a) the need for vehicle mounted sensors or other modifications to the vehicle, or b) the inability to automatically differentiate between driver and passenger texting or c) a lack of robustness in that the solutions can be easily defeated, or d) a combination of the above.
Therefore, there is a need for a simple, effective, automatic and robust solution to address the problem of driver texting.